


Gazelles

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 00:39:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3630207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saeki is shaken up by some miscalculations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gazelles

**Author's Note:**

> A very old work of fanfiction that I'm posting to update this collection. I had started writing a series of works based on the I Ching, and this was No. 5: Calculated Waiting.

>   
>  _“There are mathematicians who say that three plus one is a tautology for four, a different way of saying “four,” but I, of all men on earth, was fated to discover the only objects that contradict the essential law of the human mind._
> 
> _“At first I was in a sort of agony, fearing that I’d gone mad; since then, I have come to believe that it would have been better had I been merely insane, for my personal hallucinations would be less disturbing than the discovery that the universe can tolerate disorder. If three plus one can be two, or fourteen, then reason is madness._
> 
> _“… At the bottom, in their expected crevasse in the earth, the stones the villagers had named “blue tigers,” which were also Behemoth, or Leviathan --- the creatures of the Scriptures that signify that God is irrational --- waited, ready to transform.”_
> 
> Jorge Luis Borges, “Blue Tigers”, _Shakespeare’s Memory_ , 1983.

 

Kisarazu Ryou deflected attention so skillfully, it took even Saeki Koujiroh awhile to notice. Once he spotted the signs, it was a though a hungry tiger had noticed a gazelle that, ever-so-discreetly and in the shadows, drank from his personal watering hole. The Kisarazu twins had always put him in mind of gazelles, the way they flew around the courts so gracefully, their leaps seemingly effortless, their movements so swift and sure, not that they would appreciate the comparison.

Take the way Ryou handled unwanted things: the offer to use another team-mate’s towel, for example, even if it was clean. Most of the boys were casual about things like germs and, sometimes, personal hygiene, but Saeki noticed Kisarazu preferred to use his own drinking bottles and towels. Fair enough. Ryou accepted the offer graciously, shook out the towel as though he planned to use it, then reached over instead, and rattled the training roster clipboard hanging from a nail on the clubroom’s wooden support beam.

“Next week’s courts are already assigned?” He asked and, while everyone was distracted with future practice partners and menus, Saeki caught sight of him carefully folding up the towel and sliding it back where it came from, clean and unused. His own towel, no more clean or fluffy than the one that had been offered to him, would be taken out of his bag and rubbed all over his body. His very nice, very sleek, very toned body.

Saeki was impressed. Ryou had managed to get exactly what he wanted without drawing any attention to it or offending anyone. That took skill. That took sensitivity. That took the art of sleight-of-hand to a professional magician’s level.

“What do you think about those new girls who started hanging near the B courts today?” Aoi Kentarou asked the long-haired volley specialist. It was the sort of question Kentarou asked anybody. It usually provoked a round of exaggeration and joking from the locker-room, although less than Saeki had expected given their collective ages and healthy physical condition.

Ryou pulled out a drink bottle, took a long swig, and pretended to be struck with fascination by the latest racquet design on Ojii’s bench, “Hey, that’s quite an unusual pattern. What do you think it’s supposed to do?”

While the team was filled with chatter about surface tension and building or negating spin, he silently replaced the cap on his bottle and slipped out. Disaster averted.  
  
Not that Saeki called him on his deflections. There was more to be gained from watching quietly, learning what his team-mate was up to, aside from poaching nets with stealth and dodging knuckle-serves with flair. It took awhile for Saeki to see that Ryou wasn’t shy. The boy understood his rhyme and reason well enough.

Saeki’s first real clue was at the Junior Senbatsu Training Camp when Mizuki Hajime joined him in lurking near the Kisarazu twins, not even trying to be discreet about it. Saeki even overheard the devious manager telling someone the story of how he had mistakenly recruited Atsushi to St. Rudolph’s instead of Ryou. Saeki thought he now understood the looks that the older twin would level at Mizuki; they were so similar to the glances Fuji Syusuke sent the same way. Syusuke had been devastated by his brother’s defection from Seigaku; Saeki had noticed by how his smiles would dwindle whenever Yuuta’s name came up.

As the last tennis players left the courts, he waited for a chance to approach Ryou, when no one else was watching and nobody else was around to hear. Then he slipped up to other boy’s side, hitched their elbows together, and announced confidentially, “It looks like you miss having your brother at Rokkaku.”

He was stunned when Ryou shot him a sly, calculating smile and said, “Is that so?”

Saeki’s eyes went wide, “Am I wrong?”

He could’ve sworn Ryou’s look had turned predatory. It smoldered and in spite of coming from someone a good head shorter and a lot leaner than Saeki, sent chills up his spine, and made his muscles tighten reflexively, especially when Ryou unlocked their elbows, slid his arm around Saeki’s shoulder with a little squeeze and said in a deep, quiet voice, “It’s nice to know you’re concerned about me, sempai.”

It was definitely time to drop the comparisons to gazelles.

After Ryou spun on his heels and walked back into the club-room where Atsushi was chatting with Mizuki, Saeki realized that he hadn’t answered the question. When his kouhai was cleverly evasive toward their teammates, deflecting direct questions and generally being secretive and opaque, that was one thing; it was entirely another matter when Saeki Koujiroh had been finessed. As he clomped toward the assembly where the finalists for the Kantou Regional Junior Invitational team would be announced, he felt downright had. Thick. Doltish. Irritable.

Worse, Ryou had now become aware of him. Instead of Saeki sending him wry, amused, knowing looks after Ryou had inveigled himself once more out of something he didn’t like, the other boy smirked at _him._ Worst of all, Saeki would blush --- yes, actually blush! --- as though _he_ had been caught doing something … well, not quite underhanded, but not particularly straightforward and above-board either.

As Saeki slammed his tennis equipment back into his bag after practice, earning a puzzled frown from Ojii, he supposed it was Ryou’s way of telling him to back off, and there was a tiny hurtful thorn imbedded in that. Saeki always tried to be a good sempai, to use his abilities well. He didn’t _think_ he had ulterior motives, apart from the usual ones of cultivating friendship and good cheer --- and anyone who had a problem with those was bound to end up miserable and alone anyway.

As he swung outside from the shadowy clubhouse into the bright light of day, his eyes were dazzled by the sun. While his pupils contracted so he could see, Saeki stopped and leaned against the exterior wall. His feelings were so volatile, he tried to give himself a quick reality check.

Kisarazu Ryou inspired admiration, that was true, but it wasn’t negative or based in a sense of personal inadequacy; it wasn’t jealousy. Saeki felt protective of his kohai, but that’s how he felt toward all his teammates. Okay, so maybe the desire seemed cranked up a little more intensely with Ryou, because the boy was singularly gifted and had never relied needlessly on others. He wasn’t like Bane, who needed help bringing one plus one to its logical conclusion, or Kentarou, who would run on and on about tennis or girls or variant bowel noises until someone finally corked him, or Itsuki, who just needed to be seen and appreciated. Saeki automatically wanted to help Ryou out of instinct.

Wait! He clunked the back of his head against the wall and sank down to rest on his heels, the smell of wet clay mixed in with pine needles rising up from beneath them. No wonder Ryou had brushed him off. No one liked being babied. It undermined autonomy and confidence. It was so simple that Saeki almost felt disappointed.

“Are you alright, sempai?”

He peered up to see Ryou blocking those last rays of evening sunlight with his body.

“Fine.” He swung his chin in a wide arch from shoulder to shoulder.

“You don’t look fine.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just grinding my gears.”

“Oh?”

“It seems I’ve been too much of a mother hen.”

“What makes you think that?” He slid back the shoulder-straps of his pack and offered a hand up to Saeki.

Saeki gripped Ryou’s hand and, as he teetered to an upright stance, noticed something interesting and electrical tingle between them. “You don’t think I’m undermining your autonomy, do you?”

“No.”

“Shaking your confidence?”

Ryou snorted a laugh at the very idea.

“Making you feel like a little kid?”

“Where did _that_ come from?”

“I don’t mean to pry or snoop.” Saeki wasn’t sure why he needed to explain himself. “Maybe I spot things a little quicker than some but, if we aren’t facing each other across the court--”

His voice trailed off. They strolled out of the park, Ryou keeping his counsel, although Saeki kept checking to see if anything he’d just said made an impression. After about the seventh or eighth sidelong glance, Ryou cracked a little smile.

“Oh, and now you’re laughing at me!” Saeki declared, disgusted. Before he could turn and walk briskly back to where he’d abandoned his dignity, he felt Ryou’s hand snake out and hold him in place.

“Sempai.” It was like a command. Ryou could project a powerful amount of authority into one little word. For someone who seemed content to let others lead and take the credit, it showed considerable poise. Saeki wondered if this composure came from sharing everything with Atsushi.

Ryou looked down the street. “We’re a few blocks from the beach. Let’s walk.”

So they walked. The sky over Boso Peninsula was now a deep blue which had started to coil across the southern horizon. Ships on Tokyo Bay were lighting up like stars. Golden-orange light still bathed a few clouds floating to their right over the mainland, but the onslaught of twilight had sent the crowds home. The beach was almost deserted except for the odd person out for a late evening jog.

Finally Ryou found a spot he liked, exposed enough that passersby could give them a wide berth, yet far enough from sidewalks and concessions that a person would have to go out of their way to come close enough to intrude. He smoothed the sand out a bit with his feet, plunked down and patted the ground beside him in invitation.

Saeki dropped to the ground. Except for the murmur of distant traffic, waves lapping, and the cries of party-goers on the pleasure boats, there wasn’t much to hear. Their silence continued long enough that the vice-captain started to get itchy feet. He wasn’t used to being still for the sake of it. His eyes started darting around for signs of liveliness and activity.

“You’ve seemed less … easy-going of late,” Ryou eventually broke the silence. “Has this stuff been bothering you since Senbatsu?”

Saeki shrugged.

“You were wondering if you were being too intrusive.” Ryou reminded him.

“Oh, yes, well --- yes. That is to say, I’ve--” Saeki didn’t know what to say.

“The problem isn’t that you’re too observant.” Ryou assured. “Your gift is pretty amazing!”

“Ah, you really think so?”

Ryou nodded firmly.

“Then what is it?” Saeki started to fidget again, uncomfortable under Ryou’s frank, appraising stares. “My problem, that is.”

“The same as when you and Itsuki-sempai played Seigaku at the regionals. You observe everything just fine, but you jump to the wrong conclusion, or you don’t necessarily know the right thing to do with what you’ve learned. Plus, it’s difficult to predict how others will react, no matter what they’ve done before.”

It was Saeki’s turn to stare. This was the most Ryou had ever said to him, aside from school, team or game-related chitchat.

“Back at Senbatsu,” Ryou said, “you mentioned that it seemed like I missed Atsushi.”

“Yes,” Saeki bit his lip. “I made an assumption. I’m sorry.”

“Your guess wasn’t that far off, actually, but I should let you know when I spotted Mizuki hanging around our playground I immediately knew who he was. Remember that time we checked out the Tokyo Prefecturals? I was the one who suggested to Atsushi that a new school and a new team might help him expand.”

“You!” Saeki couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You wanted Atsushi to leave?”

“Well, we’re the same age, but by virtue of having been lifted out of mother’s C-Section by a difference of all of twenty seconds, I was designated the oldest. So I inherited the responsibilities and privileges and Atsushi got to put up and shut up --- not the best way to establish fraternal love and support. We used to take a lot of advantage of being identical, but even then, he was living under my shadow and on whatever crumbs I chose to dole out. It was getting harder for him not to resent me and I couldn’t blame him. At St. Rudolph, he has his own identity and makes his own way. You bet I suggested it and supported it. He was really pleased, too, especially when it came down to convincing the parents to let him go. Silly adults! They were actually worried about us being separated, when it was what we both wanted.”

All Saeki could do was make little exclamatory sounds of wonderment and nod in disbelief.

“As to the question of whether I miss Atsushi, the answer is yes, very much, but not enough to hold him back.”

“That was awfully --- civic-minded of you.” Saeki struggled and failed to find the right words.

“Sorry? What?”

“It must’ve been a sacrifice. You guys used to do everything together.”

“Yeah, we can still get together on long weekends and holidays. And as for the other things--” Ryou smirked.

Saeki rolled over in a fit of giggles. “Baby brothers cramp a guy’s style when it comes to girls, is that it?”

Ryou wasn’t laughing, but he wasn’t arguing either. In fact, he looked so smug, that Saeki couldn’t let it pass unpunished. He cupped a palmful of sand and tossed it at his team-mate. It showered over the sheath of glossy black hair.

Ryou spluttered and pounced on top of Saeki, straddling his waist and trying to pin him down while scooping up covering his hair and shirt with sand. Saeki laughed and struggled, not too forcefully. The boy was heavier than he had anticipated, all muscle and sinew. The airiest touch of ylang-ylang and ginger mixed with Ryou’s own musk rose off his skin, clothes, and grew stronger whenever that silky curtain of hair shifted. It mixed with the smell of the sea, and touched something so ancient and forgotten in Saeki, that he had to restrain himself not to grab the other boy by the lapels and tug him close so he could breathe that scent in more deeply. Instead, he shoved that impetus aside by grabbing more handfuls of sand and --- and ---

Saeki suddenly stopped struggling and laughing. Puzzlement crossed his face. He felt something unusual poking him in the stomach, something stiff, something Saeki was sure shouldn’t be there. He froze, uncertain.

Ryou stopped, rose to his feet, one eyebrow tilted. His jacket covered everything. “This is exactly what I’m talking about, Saeki. Your observations are always spot-on, but you jump to the wrong conclusion.”

Face beet-red, lips pressed shut, eyes fixed on the other boy, Saeki did the only thing he could think of. He leapt to his feet, waved his hands trying to come up with something appropriate to say, and failed. Then, unusually for him, since he was the sort that was unfazed by pretty much anything else, he panicked, turned and ran. Ryou didn’t call after him or try to chase him down.

That night, Saeki dreamt he was a tiger with a ferocious appetite for sleek, black gazelles, but they only appeared at night when he couldn’t see them. Even after his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness and started seeing them as darker shapes against the blue gray shadows, they were always swifter than him, always gracefully and effortlessly leaping beyond his reach, always swerving away from his powerful jaws and razor-like claws. He woke up sweating and exhausted, as though he had spent the entire night in actual pursuit, and not all that thrilled about being reduced to animalistic behaviour during his dreamlife. He needed a better language to communicate with his subconscious.

That began the worst two weeks of tennis club that Saeki could ever recall, just in time for the Nationals.

He couldn’t look Ryou in the face, but couldn’t get him out of his head either, or the smell of sea and ginger out of his nose. Saeki was the son of enlightened people who weren’t swayed by traditional prejudices, who had taught their children to be open and tolerant. He was perfectly okay in the company of other homosexuals, knew about the thing between Bane and Davide, and about his old friend, Fuji. It never bothered him before, but then, none of these boys had ever indicated any interest in him or confided their secrets so openly.

And it wasn’t as though Saeki minded Ryou’s attraction. In fact, he was flattered. It was nice to know he could attract someone like that, someone he admired. Nor, unlike Kentarou, was Saeki all about the girls either, except in the generic sense that boys his age probably ought to be thinking of dating and sex and sowing wild oats, whatever that was supposed to mean. He never obsessed about dating, and sex was pretty much sublimated to championship level tennis --- which was really sort of strange.

Meanwhile, at the clubhouse, unless Saeki caught the gleam of Ryou’s hair on the periphery of his vision, he felt uneasy, unsettled. He found himself hovering so that the other boy was always nearby within range of sight, and yet, he compulsively avoided looking directly at him, or speaking to him, even so much as a polite hello. His cowardice shamed him, but his confusion had left him completely shaken. He didn’t know what to do.

None of this seemed to have affected Ryou at all. He never spared Saeki so much as a word or glance, but went about his business calmly and quietly as usual. Saeki found himself feeling more hurt by that, than if the boy had said something dismissive and cold, not that he blamed him.

Finally, the day of the Nationals arrived and Rokkaku was up first against Higa and, of course, it was disastrous. They were thrown off right from the start by the poor sportsmanship of the Okinawans and their supporters. When Ryou went up against Hirokoba Rin, it was the first time Saeki had ever felt an actual urge to kill. He controlled it, just like he controlled all his basest urges, but despised the people who managed to pollute his thoughts and feelings like that. He watched the arrogant boy with bleached hair who played such dirty tennis, and expected that he would probably end up on the wrong end of a yakuza turf-war before his senior years were finished. None of this would have affected him, but for the sight of Kisarazu Ryou fighting so valiantly but so hopelessly. It filled Saeki with anguish.

By then, the Seigaku regulars had joined the bystanders and, appalled by Higa’s style, lent their voices in support of Rokkaku. When Ojii was hurt and taken away, they entered the court to cheer for Saeki. He fought with everything he could muster, but his heart was elsewhere and it wasn’t enough for him to win. The Seigaku Regulars wouldn’t even let him thank them.

“Go see Ojii!” Fuji commanded, shooing him out the gate.

Once Saeki arrived at the hospital, he learned that their coach was fine apart from a mild concussion and a headache, but that he had to stay a night or two for observation. Saeki quickly recounted to his teammates what the Seigaku Regulars had done, then found that everything and everyone else except for Ryou had slipped into white noise. No one else’s words were penetrating. His other teammates faded into the background. He could no longer avoid looking directly at Ryou. In fact, he couldn’t stop himself from looking at him. It was as though some barrier separating them had been broken down only to jump up around them, separating them from everyone else. The release of this block hadn’t reached his throat however. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even formulate words in his head. Saeki mutely stared at Ryou almost the entire time, trying to communicate through sheer force of emotional projection alone. He felt stupid and a little bit whacked-out, and absolutely unable to stop himself.

If the other Regulars noticed, which they surely must have since Saeki was acting so _weirdly_ , they were too discreet or too kind to say anything. Saeki’s gift for seeing things had put him in the role of the earthbound truth-speaker in their group, something he tried to approach with tact and gentleness. Now, with that aspect of him incapacitated, no one else really felt skilled in the art of poking potentially live grenades.

As for the boy who was on the receiving end of this endless anguished stare, Ryou didn’t seem disturbed at all. He acknowledged Saeki with a couple of pats on the shoulder, and then proceeded to mostly ignore him, except once to bring him a cup of hot tea and offer him some tidbits from the bento his mother had packed. He also sat next to Saeki on the long, sober and silent train-ride back to Chiba. When Kentarou ordered them to show up the next day for Seigaku’s match, Ryou promised to make sure that Saeki understood and was ready to meet them at the station the next day. Then he walked Saeki home.

After they left the station and were far from seeing eyes, Saeki heaved a huge sigh.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“For what?” Ryou replied.

“For acting like a brain-dead imbecile.”

“Saeki, there isn’t a person on the team who couldn’t tell you were in a state of shock---”

“Is that what it was?”

“---Except you, apparently. Of course that’s what it was. We suffered a devastating loss, and not just with Ojii being sent to the hospital.”

Saeki swallowed the lump in his throat. Somehow, whenever Saeki added two and two together to make six, Ryou took it back down to four. There was something so solid and reassuring about the guy, something that belied his light and fleeting appearance.

“Seigaku’s a great team,” Ryou continued. “They’re good friends to have, great supporters! But they aren’t your team. In a sense, you were out there by yourself. When you decided to keep playing, you were on your own. That took guts. You’re no coward.”

Saeki’s head fell. “Yes, I am. When I watched you fight Hirakoba, I was so full of --- anger at him, but also, regret.”

Ryou stared.

“I felt badly about--” Saeki waved his hands and decided that made an adequate substitute for words and meaning.

“Regret about turning me down? Or regret about ignoring me afterward?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t like to see that happening to you, what Hirakoba did.”

“Aw, shame!”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because, for a minute there, I felt like kissing you.”

Saeki stopped short. So did Ryou, with an inquisitive look.

“I don’t think I’d mind if you did that,” Saeki finally admitted.

“Oh, you don’t, do you?” Ryou laughed, and for a moment, Saeki thought he was going to walk away just to be contrary. Then he felt the boy’s hand tug on his elbow.

“Okay, let’s give it a try. Just not out here under the streetlights, alright?”

Ryou pulled Saeki into the shadows between someone’s front garden wall and some shrubs. Saeki was suddenly taken aback by how short Kisarazu was. He barely came up to his chin.

“This is going to be a problem,” Ryou announced to Saeki’s collar bone, as though they had both read each other thoughts. He pulled them further into these strangers’ yard, until he found a sturdy rock in a bonsai arrangement and stood on it. That put him at just a little higher than Saeki, enough to cinch him close and smile right into his face.

Saeki liked the warmth. He loved the feeling of Ryou’s arms circling around him, but he felt awkward when Ryou watched him without being the least bit embarrassed. Then Ryou tilted his head and gave him a quick peck on the lips.

This surprised Saeki. He was expecting something more momentous, and had just opened his eyes and mouth to protest when Ryou pressed against his lips for real, this time taking advantage of Saeki’s open mouth.

There was one startled little sound of “Nnnmh,” and then Saeki found himself completely giving over to the sensation of Ryou’s tongue sliding and circling around his. The thought that his teammate, so particular about things like drinking bottles and even clean towels, would set aside reservations and abandon himself into a kiss with Saeki, was sweet and very reassuring. He was just starting to appreciate how strong and “all-male” Ryou was, so at odds with his seemingly “dainty” stature. Ryou was as connected to the earth as they came. Next to him, Saeki was the one who was flighty and mercurial.

As the sweep and curl of kissing sent ripples of pleasure down his back, loosening the muscles of his thighs and calves, like everything solid was dissolving in their path, Saeki found himself sinking against Ryou. The smaller boy growled in his chest, happily accepting and supporting the extra weight.

There was a delicious moment when Saeki’s mind blanked out, wholly swept up in pleasure, where it felt like he was being rocked gently in a boat on long swelling waves. He knew he was aroused, but not to the extent that clothes had to be Ripped. Off. Now. So that they could do it like a pair of yowling tomcats in some poor family’s bushes off a main road --- although if he devoted any more energy to thinking about it, it just might come to that. In fact, tomcats, yowling, bushes, doing it sounded pretty darned good right now.

Ryou broke off the kiss.

“I think you know why we’ve got to stop here,” his voice had grown so low and husky, it sent sympathetic vibrations down to the arches of Saeki’s feet, curling his toes.

“Hell, yssss,” Saeki slurred, lifting his mouth back to Ryou’s for another long draught.

Eyes fiery, Ryou gave him a little jostle and pulled back enough to let some cooler air float between them. “That’s enough from you, sempai.”

Saeki moaned with disappointment. He was too lightheaded to be thinking clearly. Fortunately, Ryou held him and caressed him and let his heart yammer until he cooled down, until he felt like he could stand without tripping over his feet. When at last, everything had evened back --- not to the same place as before, but to more stability, a more even keel, Saeki sent a half-formed question in another look to Ryou.

“Home.” The boy answered, resolutely. Saeki’s heart was too full to do much talking. They finished their walk in silence.

“Tomorrow?” Saeki turned to ask.

“I will swing by and pick you up,” Ryo affirmed. Then he reached up and stroked Saeki’s cheek, one curling sweep that almost left him trembling. In Ryou’s eyes, shining with what looked exactly like happiness and contentment, Saeki saw that there was no misdirection, no deflection. Just a solid, forthright and steady gaze. All the answer he needed.


End file.
